graysonline.com – Flow Cytometry Facility

Corporate Partner

graysonline.com – Flow Cytometry Facility

Group Managing Director, Cameron Poolman, is excited about the synergies between his business – graysonline.com – and the Garvan. He got to know Garvan Chief Operating Officer, John Dakin, and realised that there were many similarities between the two organisations: “John’s passion was what first connected me with the Garvan. The culture at graysonline.com is also passionate. We have similar numbers of staff (400+); we’re both innovative, Australian, non-bureaucratic and in growth phases; and we both continually benchmark our performance internationally and aim to improve. We’re both aspirational companies.”

graysonline.com is a phenomenal success story. The company was the largest traditional auctioneer in Australia, but changed its business model to online in 2000. Today grays delivers over 100,000 items per month nationally, sells over $250 million annually and has grown its business fivefold. The company auctions everything from mining equipment to wine, IT products and even jewellery (particularly for the Garvan, where they auctioned choice pieces bequeathed by the Drs Ryan).

Poolman says: “How we act as a corporate citizen is extremely important to us. We wanted to build a philanthropic allegiance with one organisation and Garvan suited us: it stands for a lot of things that are important to grays”. The company opted to support the purchase of a major high-tech piece of equipment in the flow cytometry facility.

To know exactly what company funds were supporting was important to Poolman: “We were reassured to know that the gift went directly to Garvan and made a tangible difference to not just one, but a number of research groups”. Garvan looks forward to mutual growth with graysonline.com.